The fighting between rival drug cartels began in earnest after the 1989 arrest of Félix Gallardo, who ran the cocaine business in Mexico. There was a lull in the fighting during the late 1990s but the violence has steadily worsened since 2000.

When was the first drug cartel?

The Medellín cartel, the first major drug cartel in Colombia, began in the mid-1970s when Colombian marijuana traffickers began smuggling small quantities of cocaine into the United States.

Who formed the first cartel?

The Guadalajara Cartel (Spanish: Cártel de Guadalajara) also known as The Federation (Spanish: La Federación) was a Mexican drug cartel which was formed in the late 1970s by Rafael Caro Quintero, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo in order to ship cocaine and marijuana to the United States.